Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 II, a reborn version of the classic Fujifilm Acros 100. A film with a near cult-like following and one that is known best for having a low reciprocity failure. But when it comes to latitude, it is often seen as narrow. Even when pushed in processing, it can often result in dark, under-exposed, and under-developed images. So, it makes for the perfect film to kick off a new series of reviews to see how Diafine handles this legendary film.
Film Specs
Manufacturer: Fujifilm
Name: Neopan Acros 100 II
Type: Panchromatic B&W
Film Base: Acetate
Film Speed: ASA-100
Formats Available: 135 (35mm), 120.
For this review, I’ll be using the film’s box speed of ASA-100 as the base EI, then shooting two stops over to ASA-50 and ASA-25 accordingly and then two stops under ASA-200 and ASA-400. The Massive Dev Chart has two entries for Acros II and Diafine, the first is 4.5 + 4.5 at 20°C for ASA-100, and 5+5 at 22°C for ASA-200. In this case, I decided to split the difference and went with the 5+5 times, keeping the temperature around 20°C. The reason is that I wanted to give the film the best possible chance at success. I shot the film through my Nikon F5 with the 28mm f/2.8 lens with the aperture set to f/11 and no filters attached. In the example images, they’ll be shown -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 from left to right. All adjustments were done using the EV controls. The camera was mounted on a tripod, and the shutter tripped using a remote trigger.
I’ll admit that when I first decided to put Acros II through its paces, I didn’t have high hopes for the results. As mentioned in the opening paragraph, Acros II is not widely known for its ability to go beyond one-stop in either direction. Additionally, I did fudge the development slightly, trying to lean into the power of Diafine as much as I could. So when I pulled the roll out from the tank, I was plenty surprised to see that all five frames looked good, nothing too thin, nothing too thick. Everything appeared to be usable and within my personal tolerances for a good roll of film. And that’s what is so interesting about this one: how consistent the five frames were across the range.
Despite appearing consistent across all five frames, once I started scanning the images, I began to notice some differences between them, mainly at the extreme edges, particularly when the exposure was in the +/- 2-stop territory. At the extreme, you are losing your shadow detail at -2, and your highlights are blocked up at +2. This isn’t surprising at all, but to be honest, all is not lost. In some frames, the images with some work could be recovered. You are getting the best results within +/- 1 stop of the box speed, but there are still some significant differences between them. Even at this point, with a light touch in post-processing, you can easily bring back the results. But in all cases, you aren’t gaining any visible grain and maintaining Acros II’s excellent sharpness. The contrast also remains on point with only slight increases and decreases depending on your direction.
While Acros II does perform best within a smaller latitude, I would go beyond 1 to 1 2/3rd stops from box speed without adjusting your developing times. While you might be able to get away with no compension within this range, once you’re working outside of those and with any standard developer you will want to start adjusting your development time to compensate. While outside of the range of this test, I think you might be able to get one extra stop on either side with this Diafine combination. This test suggests that Acros II may have a better latitude than I expected, which can be exploited by the right developer, in this case, Diafine.